70s idols decades most stylish

Now that the trend has left the runway and hit the shops, is it time for us to go with the look Vogue calls 70s Mum?

Before we shake our heads at the prospect of having to dress him indoors like a pastiche of ABBA, maybe it really is time we looked at 70s fashion with more respect than ridicule.

Here's our guide to the style icons who made the 70s so unique:

Bianca Jagger

Seldom has a style icon defined a decade in the same way as Bianca Jagger in the 1970s. Starting the decade by marrying Mick Jagger might have been enough for some but for this Nicaraguan beauty it was only a taster of what was to follow.

Bianca spent the 70s blazing a trail through the decade that fashion forgot, as Warhol's muse and Saint Laurent's model. Immortalised as the disco princess who rode into the world's most 70s idols decades most stylish exclusive club for her 27th birthday on a white horse led by a naked stable hand, she also has the singular distinction of inventing festival fashion.

You don't have to look too hard to find Bianca's iconic fashion legacy. Kylie's hooded dress was taken straight from her Halston hoodie, and this season's trouser suits might just as well have been sketched from her iconic wedding gown.

High point: That white horse

Low point: Marrying Mick

Signature look: Trouser suits by Yves St Laurent

David Bowie

Having spent the 1960s doing nothing more productive than singing about a laughing gnome, the new decade should have seen David Jones consigned to pop trivia. What nobody saw coming was that Bowie would enter the 1970s as the most fashionable cult on the planet and exit as a global phenomenon.

In fashion terms, David Bowie is the man who single-handedly invented and then reinvented androgyny. David Jones became David Bowie, David Bowie became Ziggy Stardust, everybody forgot his name, then they forgot his sex and finally they just listened to his music. This is what he wanted in the first place. By the time 1975 came and went his look was so imitated that if a man turned up at a Communion party in a skintight gold lamé jumpsuit nobody would have raised an eyebrow.

How he became the sexiest man alive requires a leap of imagination from the reader. But were it not for Bowie, Boy George wouldn't have been in Culture Club, David Beckham couldn't have worn that sarong with a straight face, and Justin Bieber wouldn't be getting the benefit of the doubt.

Fashion high point: The ironic wearing of an eye patch on stage

Fashion low point: The not very ironic wearing of underpants on stage

Fashion legacy: More than anyone could have ever imagined

Patty Hearst

Were it not for being kidnapped by the Symbianese Liberation Army, 19-year-old heiress Patty Hearst would have been known for nothing more adventurous than giving away large amounts of money to good causes at posh polo tournaments. In 1974 that life changed forever.

Held captive in a basement and fed on a diet of badly cooked Marxism, after three months she emerged from her cocoon transformed by what was the most radical makeover in fashion history. Deciding to join up with the gang that kidnapped her in the first place, for a short time Patty Hearst made class warfare the epitome of chic and every over-privileged teenager in America dreamed of one day giving up piano and taking up armed robbery.

Although Patty was jailed for her activities with the SLA, her inexplicable loyalty to her kidnappers and subsequent mental breakdown may soon be fully explained. Due to recent pioneering research work undertaken by TV personalities such as Gok Wan, Dr Gillian McKeith and Simon Cowell, psychiatrists are gaining a much fuller understanding in the effective treatment of Stockholm Syndrome sufferers.

High point: Being papped by CCTV taking part in a bank robbery.

Low point: Deciding that the m ransom paid by her father really wasn't good enough

Fashion legacy: Nobody ever wore a beret like Patty wore a beret

Lynda Carter

With both hope and funds beginning to run low, Lynda Carter was just about to return to the ignominy of small town America when her agent called her to say she had been given the part in a new TV series called the New Adventures of Wonder Woman.

Lynda gave it her all and in just two short years she would gain worldwide fame and worldwide infamy. By all rights Wonder Woman should not have been a ratings success. The hastened adaptation of a comic book series, the storylines, dialogue, set design and acting ranges of all involved should have seen the show buried after just one pilot episode.

What the show did have going for it was the hypnotic charms of its star Lynda Carter, a kick-ass costume which came with bullet deflecting wristbands and a lasso which made men tell the truth. For the very first time on TV, girls had their own superhero, mothers had someone to disapprove of and dads... well anyway.

In hindsight perhaps the iconic outfit lacked a little by way of elegant tailoring but as a statement of the times it becomes much more subtle when you place it within the context of 1975 or David Bowie.

Years later, Lynda Carter said of her big break that she hated being the pin-up on every locker room wall, yet we think she shouldn't be so hard on herself. Without her there might have been no Spice Girls, no trashy hen-night costumes and we might never have been ready for the talents of Katy Price and Jodie Marsh!

Finest hour: That twirl

Lowest ebb: MAC is to issue Wonder Woman make-up this March

Signature look: Over round glasses

Farrah Fawcett

The Farrah Fawcett myth runs something along the lines that by 1976 she was everyone's sweetheart and the epitome of the all American girl next door. Like most myths the actual truth is far more disturbing.

Farrah Fawcett was so unnaturally radiant that if you happened to have had the misfortune of living next door to her in 1976, by 1977 you would be divorced from your husband and living off your alimony in Offaly.

Spotted by a Hollywood publicist and encouraged to try her luck in LA.

After adverts for hairspray and a series of toothpaste commercials, minor TV roles followed. It was then that two events in quick succession cemented her iconic status. The first was a picture of Farrah in a red swimsuit that became the best selling poster of the 1970s. The second was her role in the original Charlie's Angels TV show which propelled Farrah and her hair to unprecedented levels of global fame.

With her natural beauty and sun-kissed look, the hair became so famous that she finished her career having made more money from her own line of styling products than anything TV or modeling could offer. Forget Jennifer Aniston and the that Rachel do, the most popular cut of all time belongs to Farrah and that famous Fawcett Flick.

Best look: Big hair

Worst look: Big ribs

Signature look: Natural make-up and 70s beach chic

Jerry Hall

Save for the good fortune of a car accident, nobody outside of a small town in Texas would have ever heard of Jerry Hall. With a one-way ticket from the insurance settlement, the blonde with legs that go on forever found herself sunbathing on the beaches of St Tropez and once she had topped up the tan she managed to catch the attention of an influential fashion agent by the name of Claude Haddad. Whisked quickly away to Paris to share a quiet flat with a retiring girl called Grace Jones, the rest, as they say is history.

Although something of a slow starter Jerry caught up quickly. By 1977 she had featured on 40 covers, in an iconic music video and was engaged to Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry. Clearly dissatisfied with being the squeeze of the world's most eligible popstar and earning the equivalent of €20,000 for a day of modeling, something, somewhere, had to give. Once the rumours circulating of her involvement with Mick Jagger were confirmed by divorce proceedings from Bianca, it became clear to all what that something was.

To this day Bryan Ferry still refuses to discuss the subject but had he visited Jerry's home town in the first place he might not have been so trusting. As the prettiest girl from the frontier on the edge of nowhere, the town motto is 'Come and Take It'. By 1977 the end result was that Jerry took it, Bryan lost it, Bianca couldn't anymore and Mick probably shouldn't have in the first place. Famous for being the world's first truly global supermodel, everyone from Cindy to Kate walks the catwalk in her shadow.